Bechukosai - Israel is Hashem's Garden

this week's paral podcast was sponsored anonymously may be a great Merit for the sponsor and their family you're listening to the weekly paral podcast with Ari goldwag recorded with hashem's NeverEnding assistance in R Israel 5784 2024 this Ser par is parai and we have the very final para ofra Book of Leviticus and before I get into the par I just want to take mention make mention and ask you to take note notice of the fact that I'm in my backyard by the request of one of the listeners to this podcast to instead of doing this podcast the partial podcast in my office which is rather dry to do that outdoors I mentioned a few weeks ago my garden and in this week's partial podcast we're going to talk about how the Jewish people is compared to a Gaffin to a to a uh a Vine a grape vine and right here next to me you see there is a piece of my Grapevine and you see the fence Etc uh maybe in different podcasts you'll see different parts of the garden we have to be in a shady area of it there's a lot of sun here and um in order for the video to come out good bottom line here we are it's and our par has the starts out the par if we listen to the words of the if we are hard at work toiling in the Torah trying to understand hashem's will trying to do his will trying to have a relationship with him so we'll have everything we need we'll be able to live in our land we're in Israel but if we don't if we don't follow the dictates of the Torah so heaven forbid we can be sent into Exile we can end up all over the world dispersed throughout the lands and it will take some time before we are brought back as we are being brought back right now but it will still take time until everyone returns to the Holy Land the Torah says like this this is towards the end of the paraa so if let's say the Jewish people don't listen to the messages that God is bringing the cross Hashem is speaking to us through the the difficulties that occur to us says I will bring them to the lands of their enemies or their so hopefully their heart will become will be subservient and recognize and then their sins will be erased because they'll recognize they've done wrong PK says the end of the parion in uh verse 42 chapter 26: 42 is a I will remember the bris the Covenant that I made with Jacob and also the Covenant I made with Isaac and I will also remember the Covenant I made with Abraham and I will remember the land okay and then the go on to speak about how they'll have left the land because they didn't keep the statutes and laws that are incumbent upon them when when living in the land but in the end even when they're in the lands of their enemies Hashem say I promise I won't completely and utterly revile them and then I will remember the original Covenant I made when I took them out of Egypt of the nations of to be their God so Hashem promises us he's going to remember the Covenant and interestingly of course um the Covenant is said in verse usually we speak about Abraham is and yov Abraham Isaac and Jacob but here speaks about them first the last thenu Abraham and the Mish is going to speak about try to address we'll hopefully get an understanding of why it goes in reverse and I'd like to read to you the Mish in a moment but first I want to read to you from the that the m is going to quote the PK speaks about a Geffen right here you see this beautiful Geffen which we've been able to develop and we've enjoyed the fruits of of Israel the The Grapes that have come from this G from this grape vine so the says says in Psalms chapter 80 verse 8 God Lord of Lord of hosts bring us back right we're speaking about the the what happens when we don't listen to God so we ask Hashem bring us back to you bring us back Shine Your Face upon us and we will be saved and the we just read it speaks about the fact that hasm remembers his Covenant with us when he took us out of Egypt so this P also says in ch 80 ver9 you took the geff and the vineyard the the vine the the beautiful fruit producing Vine of the Jewish people you brought them out of Egypt to G and you caused the Nations who were found in the land of Israel to be removed from Israel and you planted us here in the land of Israel P you cleared out everything before us right just like like when you have a Vine you want to plant a Vine as the explain as we're going to see in the M when you have a Vine and you want to plant the vine you want it to grow nicely so you have to clear out the land you have to remove all of the Rocks you have to get the land to be fertile and ready for the for for this Vine to be planted so to Hashem when he brought the Jewish people into the land of Israel he also cleared out and after removing the Nations that were there so Hashem caused us this beautiful Vine the Jewish people to for its its roots to to root in the land and it filled up the land right so this grave F you see right here so it actually had climbed up a huge tree that's that was over here and had climbed up the entire tree and it was actually many of the grapes Were Out Of Reach we had to climb up on a roof over here in order to get the grapes and recently we chopped down this tree and so we were able to bring down the level of the grapes the grape vine closer to where we can access the grapes but naturally a grape vine Rises up and it climbs up and it and expands and it extends and that's how the Jewish people are verse 11 K the The Vineyard has a beautiful shade that it provides here we are sitting oh there's a lemon tree here and there's a grape vine around me and we're sitting in the shade of these beautiful trees planted in the Holy Land of Israel so the Jewish people also provide shade for the mountains mountains are hot a hot place and its branches are powerful and they climb up the mighty Cedars to sh Andel the Jewish people are compared to a Vine but it's a Vine that extends and expands throughout the entire land of Israel and has the potential to expand and have an impact on all of the Nations around her and the P speaks about the fact that Hashem sent us into Galas just like we saw in our in our para but Hashem ultimately is going to return us back to our Holy Land all right so that's the now let's see together the med and the med has a lot to say a lot of beautiful things to say about the mush of a Vineyard the analogy of the vineyard Hashem promises he's going to remember the Covenant with Jacob that's what it says in the verse our verse that we just read in in Psalms that God took us out he took this Vine he exported the the the grape vine removed it from Egypt caused it to travel all the way to the land of Israel and replanted it there just like a vine you remove all of the Rocks as we said take out all the Rocks before you plant it so that the Earth is is fertile the Earth is Supple ready to ready to be a a proper place for the vine to grow it's important to understand even today that in order for the Jewish people to be successful in our land spiritually materially every single way so those who threaten our way of life whether it's physically they threaten our way of life or it's spiritually they need to go so the secularism it's got to go the Arab culture which is antithetical in many ways to Tyra yes they believe in one God but they believe in an Angry God they wish to uproot us and they they they cause they call us uh demies you know low low class right so we need to get rid of those who threaten us but 3,300 years ago when the Jewish people came into the land of Israel so all of the idolators needed to be removed the the is not going to go through many different ways that the Jewish people is compared to a Vineyard to a vine to a grape vine and it says like this just like a a Vine it as the to the extent that you remove the more you remove the more you clear the Earth the more right the Earth which have been able to work and and develop over the last few months we've been planting grass we've been planting trees we're going to today plant a uh a remon tree a pomegranate tree so so but if you want it to you want it to succeed if you want your plants to succeed so you need to you need to remove all the things that block it being able to have space for its roots to spread out once it has powerful Roots they go down into the ground and of course the roots go back to our Tyra go back to our connection to hasem was the root of everything and I would say by extension not just Hashem but on the way who is who are the individuals who originally set down for us what it looks like to connect ASM it was Abraham it was y it was yob right they Hashem is remembering what does he mean Hashem remembers his Covenant with Abraham Isaac and Jacob it means he remembers that connection that he had with them he remembers his Covenant that he made with us when we left Egypt when we were truly connected deeply connected this this uh Vine that had roots that would strike down into the ground and and spread out throughout the land right so Hashem remembers that Hashem recalls that and brings us back here because he knows we have the immense potential we have the roots it was very interesting when we when we cut down the gra when we cut down this huge tree over here and the the grave fun had climbed up it so we had to it actually extended all throughout our garden and we had to we had to bring a gardener to to to cut back all of the branches and what remained were just these these life it's what seemed to be lifeless two we have two here one's right here one's right over here it's a two separate one we can will be able to eat the grapes from this year m hasem one we have to wait three three years but um it seemed lifeless we didn't know if it would produce any leaves we didn't know if these leaves would grow and we still haven't seen yet any the the beginnings this is just the beginnings of the leaves on this one but uh we still haven't seen any any uh grape hopefully the grapes will grow as well might may take a few years for it to come back to life so to speak but but you look at it and it looks lifeless but you know that the roots are good you know that you didn't as long as you didn't remove it by The Roots as long as the roots are there if it if it produced before it's going to continue to produce and it's the same thing with the Jewish people in our relationship with Hashem Hashem knows this people has good roots as long as we go back to the roots as long as we reconnect to and yov as long as we reconnect to the exitus from Egypt when we received the T has took us to be his Nation so things are going to be good so here's the right nearby my house about 10 minutes away there I I went on a hike with my daughter and we we happened upon a huge field filled with with these grave funds it was before they had produced any leaves yet it goes back a few months and there was one after another after another smaller than the ones that I have but each one draped over something to hold up for the branch as we have right here as well and there were many rows of them but they weren't allowed to run wild right it wasn't just like you have one and it's huge and it's running in every direction but rather there they are they are placed in columns or in rows everything is very orderly it's not just the a huge multitude mixture go to Golem we find that the Jewish people also is array the way that the Jewish people was in the midbar in the wilderness was we were arrayed around the mishkan four tribes in Direction I'm sorry three tribes in the four directions 3 * 4 is 12 and everything was very misar it was very ordered why in order for each tribe to develop its full to its full potential so everything needs to have its space everything needs to have its place that's why it says in the verse each person was upon his flag right everything was arranged by flags and the flags had representation of each the attribute of each excuse me of each tribe with signs for the for the houses of the fathers so the Jewish people are compared to a Vineyard or an orderly place where each one of us can Thrive and become what we're meant to be if you look around my garden which can't show you right now but you see that the The Vineyard the the vine itself the core of the of the vine and what you see here is just offshoots of the vine but the main Vine itself is very low it's short other trees grow much taller there I have a above me is a a lemon tree that's grown very tall and over there we have a an olive tree which is grown tall and we're going to plant as we said the pomegranate tree which it's AEM will grow tall but but the the vine the grape vine its character is that it's short it's low but what happens is first of all you use other trees to prop it up and as I mentioned earlier it climbs up on the trees in order to get the light and to access the light so the the it sends out its branches in and it uses other trees to climb upon the other trees it's beautiful the Jewish people also they look very low they look like this lonely tree what kind of impact can a can a nation that has only 15 million members compared to a world where There's 7 billion people or 7 and a half billion 8 billion people I don't know what numbers we're up to now but how much of an impa impact can we have we're so small we're so insignificant so low says first of all that although we're lowly it seems that way now but in the future time when mhia when the Messiah arrives the impact we will have this huge impact that spreads across the globe affects all the nations of the world but I would say even before we get there I'm just adding my own thought that occurs to me as we read this it's the very fact that the Jewish people have gone into Exile we've spread out everywhere and we've maintained our unique character our unique way of living based on the Tyra and we've had a huge impact Christianity came from early Christianity came from Judaism Islam so many things in Islam are based on Judaism so this lowly tree has so to speak spread climbed up on the other trees and and had a huge impact now the me has another point you can have one when you have a a Vine so it can have one offshoot that climbs up and and conquers right takes over another tree the Jewish people also have this character that one righteous individual one offshoot of the Jewish people comes and it can and it can have a huge impact that one individual that one sadic that one righteous individual we also refer to asav we refer to DAV his great great grandson Messiah the Messiah as the Sprout the one who the offshoot with very beautiful mush a very beautiful analogy as we find Joseph he was the one member of the Jewish people who had gone down to Egypt and he became the ruler there over the entire Egypt isua the P says about Joshua yose's great great grandson was with him King David it says his name went out upon all the lands King Solomon ruled over the all the other kingdoms right and that's the ultimate purpose of the Jewish people is to be a light unto the Nations to inspire them all to have a real relationship with God a proper relationship with hem and a final example morai the uncle of Esther he served as second in command to a very similar way to the way that Yosef served to far to parro to pharaoh but the Jewish people have this aspect of our leaders become world leaders very beautiful if you look at a grape vine right so it has these leaves and if you want to see where are the where are Theos where are the the grapes grapes are not on top of the leaves they're always found hanging underneath the leaves because the leaves protect they're there to help and protect the grapes that they should they should be able to be available for human beings to eat right and in a similar way says the in the Jewish people and this is important to think about today the Jewish people so we have people who are Torah Scholars we have those who Inspire the Jewish people who study themselves and Inspire others but then we have people who are less learned who are the word is Amar is often translated as ignorance they don't know everything but the of course the Torah Scholars try their best to teach those who know less but those who know less also support the Torah Scholars they recognize the importance the significance of the study of Torah and how it overflows into those around them and therefore the the leaves which represent those who don't have a a taste they're not they don't have the sweetness of Torah necessarily in their lives but they protect through their support of the Torah they they protect those who study the Torah and those who dedicate themselves to Tor so that they can continue to produce the fruit beautiful mus m just like you find that there are certain there's different sized Bunches of grapes some of them seem to be taller some of them seem to be shorter smaller and larger the ones that are [Music] smaller hold on a second I want to read the explanation so when you have a very big when you have a very large uh sweet fully developed uh cluster of grapes so it's so big that it ends up coming closer to the ground it seems very low but the one that's very low is much sweeter and it's already but the ones that are much higher are smaller they don't have that full sweetness yet they haven't developed it yet completely so to the character of the Jewish people is that to the extent that a person is more full of sweetness more full of Torah they are closer to the ground they are more humble so they look like they don't if you would ask them they they don't seem like they know too much well maybe they don't indicate that they know so much but they may be incredible Torah Scholars and the ones that are higher up that that haven't yet developed that full humility so sometimes it seems like they're higher and more noticeable but those are the those are the ones that don't have that sweetness yet okay there's so much more to read here there's so many more comparisons but I like to take us to the end of this medish where it says says like this the final point the final Point here that the med says is that the as we mentioned the grape vine is low it's low and therefore when let's say in in olden times they would have people who would sit guard over a field make sure that no robbers came in to steal any of the fruits or to damage the the crops Etc so when when you would they would sit in a guard Hut that was sit in a small Hut and they would be watching the field so in regular Orchards where the trees are very tall so the guard Hut was lower than the fruits that they were watching when it comes to the to the grape vine the grapes are lower than the than the shower than the person who's watching the fruits and and trying to protect them so the person is sitting and looking down the the Watchman is sitting and looking down at the fruits so to the Jewish people we are like a Vine the one who watches over us he's above us he's looking down at us right the Nations perhaps we can say they think that they're high and mighty they're they're very egotistical they've risen very high they think they're are a you know on a pedestal the Jewish people recognize we're not there we're not so as great as we wish we could be so looks downem is our wa our Watchman so to speak he watches over us he's protecting us he's looking down to where we are we're not we don't believe ourselves to be high and mighty just like a G and how do you prop it up how do you prop it up so we have here a uh mail post and on it on wires metal wires but in the olden days they they would prop it up with pieces of wood tried wood just like the grape vine is propped up with dry wood old wood but it is moist and supple even though the others the forefathers we mentioned at the beginning y Abraham even though you know Jakob is the the most the closest to our age so to speak is is a little older AR is a little older but the fact that they they're old and they're no longer with us they're not alive but we still we lean on them we still are are the Supple posts the Supple I'm sorry G Vine stands on the posts of the other of the forefathers and pro they provide support for us they are to whom we turn and remember and look to to understand what our relationship with hm looks like I want to bless you and ask you to bless me has should help us that we should be able to return to this land to plant these grape Vines to be rooted in the land develop become the amazing nation that we are become and spread the light of Torah not just for ourselves of course it begins with ourselves but not just for us but for the entire world thank you so much for listening a wonderful Shamus this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.wag.com or search search on iTunes Ari goldwag [Music]